Dear Brothers in Christ:

Permit me to address you in a matter of great importance to the Synod and to me.

At the outset I wish to emphasize that, by the grace of God, I am — as I have been in the past — fully committed to the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures. I hold these Scriptures to be the Word of God in their totality and in all their parts and to be utterly truthful, infallible and completely without error.

This is the presupposition and basis for all of my work as professor of New Testament Interpretation. It is to this Word of God that I have pledged obedience, and to it I want, with the help of God, to continue to subject myself and all my thinking, speaking and writing.

It has become obvious that several essays I have written have become the source of much difficulty, disturbance and confusion because of their inadequate formulation and their failure to guard carefully against misunderstanding. I realize that basically they addressed themselves to the wrong question, namely: “In what sense are the Scriptures the Word of God?” The proper inquiry would have been, and is, “How are The Scriptures, as the Word of God, to be used?”

I deeply regret and am heartily sorry over the part I played in contributing to the present unrest within the Synod. Since last Tuesday I have been haunted by the statement of the lay delegate from Bethel Lutheran Church in Chicago, namely: “If only he would say that he is sorry!” I do so herewith and ask of my fellow-members in the Synod that they forgive these actions of mine.

Herewith then I withdraw the following papers in their entirety:

(1) The Bible as Record, Witness and Medium of Revelation;

(2) Revelation and Inspiration;

(3) The Inerrancy of Scripture; and

(4) God is One.

Such withdrawal is here understood to mean that the questions to which these essays proposed to address themselves will not again be dealt with by me on the basis of anything written in them. If and when I need to address myself to these issues again any such effort will be undertaken only in full cooperation with my colleagues on the Seminary Faculty and any others in Synod delegated to carry out this task. At that time, I assure you, a new, more considered and properly safeguarded approach will be used.

I trust that you will find this declaration of mine acceptable and that, by the grace and with the help of God, the unrest in the Synod will be ended so that we may all devote our full energies to our God-given tasks.

Martin H. Scharlemann